Julie G’s Reviews > A History of Kindness > Status Update

Tributaries, arteries, veins,
we are the river, sometimes weeping,
sometimes laughing
in this brief life
and we can't help it but we love other waters,
opening glorious into one another. . .

Some days I wonder how anyone is content
on plains, on mountains, but then
doesn't water live everywhere
beneath our feet
as it journeys from one holy site to another?

It's not wrong
to be afraid. To know it is to be alive.

. . . it was hard to believe
such a small creek might rise up and rage that way
but it became a river. Now I watch what will happen next spring
as this world is changed
and see what comes from that water.

You never know when something, man, storm,
sea creature, a great wind of the sky
might take you to some other shore,
cough you up and drop you down
on new land, into a new story.
Once you were a prophet king.
Now you wear sackcloth and ash.

When you are gentle to the skin of others,
touching them softly, speaking with gentle words,
it is compassion.

When your spirit no longer shines,
you crave gems.

You ask why would they do it.
I think it is in their blood
to leave a forest of cleared trees
a wake of red,
as if they can
or can't
help themselves

Power eats the world.

The underground roots
remember the sound of each beat
that ran through,
each pounding run,
each spill of blood
that parted the world.

They said you only pass on the people's story
by telling it. You keep it by giving
it away. So I do.